Bangladeshi Team from Barendra University Wins Global NASA Award

Jun 9, 2025

Bangladeshi Team from Barendra University Wins Global NASA Award

On 6–7 October 2023, over 57,999 participants from 8,715 teams across 152 countries came together for the global 36-hour hackathon — NASA’s Space Apps Challenge. Among them, a team of young innovators from Barendra University in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, emerged as a global winner, clinching the Best Storytelling Award for their project Aqua Explorer under the challenge “Everything Starts with Water.”

The team, known as Team Voyagers, initially faced disappointment when they were not selected among the top 50 teams to participate on-site in Dhaka. “That meant we had to participate virtually,” said one of the team members. “From our university, two teams made it to the on-site round, which was a bit disheartening for us at first. But we promised ourselves to give it our best shot.”

Determined to meet NASA’s standards, the team restructured their entire project and began refining it with the help of mentors from BASIS, who provided technical and strategic guidance throughout the process.

Their perseverance paid off. Not only did they become regional champions in the Rajshahi round, but they also secured a place among the global finalists. Later, Alhamdulillah, they were declared global winners in their category, a recognition that earned them an invitation to the Global Winners Celebration at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, USA, held on 4 June 2025.

The winning project, Aqua Explorer, is an interactive game and storytelling platform designed to help school and college students understand how water flow patterns around the world are being affected by climate change. It aims to raise awareness of the growing vulnerability of water — one of Earth’s most precious resources.

“Being able to raise the Bangladeshi flag at an international platform like NASA is a moment of great pride for us,” said the team, who are now preparing to return home. “Our flight is scheduled for the morning of 9 June. Alhamdulillah, all our official programs have been completed.”

The team extended heartfelt thanks to Barendra University for fully sponsoring their travel and participation, and especially to Mohammad Zaman Sir, who served as the team's advisor and accompanied them throughout their stay in the United States.

Team Voyagers consists of five members, all students of the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department at Barendra University: